Public-private Japanese partnership invests $15M in infectious diseases

The Japanese Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund said it will invest nearly $15 million to advance new drugs for neglected tropical diseases as well as fund the development of a vaccine candidate for tuberculosis.

In its first round of funding, the GHIT Fund is awarding three grants up to a total of $6.8 million to speed the development of drugs for schistosomiasis, Chagas disease and parasitic roundworms. A second round of $5.65 million will fund a vaccine candidate for tuberculosis, and an additional $2.2 million will be used to launch a program to help researchers find promising new drug candidates to combat infectious diseases.

Switzerland's Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative and Eisai of Japan are the recipients of the first, $3.84 million grant for a new combination therapy known as E1224 for Chagas disease, a parasite-borne infection transmitted by insects called "kissing bugs." About 8 million people worldwide are infected with Chagas, which can cause cardiovascular disorders--including enlarged heart, heart failure, severely altered heart rhythm and heart attack--that often lead to severe disability and death.

Merck KGaA, the Top Institute Pharma of the Netherlands, and Astellas Pharma will share a second grant of $1.86 million to develop and register a pediatric formulation of praziquantel, the gold standard treatment for schistosomiasis, a disease caused by parasitic worms. The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, University of Liverpool and Eisai won a third grant of $1.09 million to investigate new drug compounds against Wolbachia bacteria, which play a role in many parasitic diseases like elephantiasis and river blindness.

The second funding round of $5.65 million will be shared by the National Institute of Biomedical Innovation, Japan's Create Vaccine and the nonprofit biotech Aeras to fund additional preclinical testing for a tuberculosis vaccine. The vaccine candidate is designed to enhance mucosal immunity as a defense mechanism by targeting the patient's mucous membranes to prevent tuberculosis from entering the lungs. The vaccine provided better protection in mice compared to the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine, the 90-year-old vaccine against tuberculosis that provides insufficient protection to teenagers and adults.

The GHIT Fund will also provide $2.2 million for a Hit-to-Lead Platform program for a two-year time period in hopes of converting drug "hits" from the compound libraries of Japanese pharmaceutical companies into lead compounds for anti-infectives.

The GHIT Fund is a public-private partnership made up of 5 Japanese pharmaceutical companies--Astellas Pharma, Daiichi Sankyo, Shionogi & Co., Eisai and Takeda--plus two government ministries and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Launched in April 2013, it has a potential 5-year commitment of more than $100 million.

- read the press release